Packaging labels which include materials of value disposed therein are known in the art. Typically, the material includes coupons, mail-in rebates, sweepstakes entry forms, product literature or related product information. It is also known to use mult-panel labels, expanded content labels or extended content labels to deliver such materials.
Three-layer stick-on lablels for delivering a sweepstakes entry or a rebate coupon on a container are known in the art. These labels consist of a clear base layer for affixing the label to the container, a foldable strip of paper containing product information on one portion and the sweepstakes entry or a rebate coupon on the other portion. A perforation line separates the two portions. A transparent outer layer attaches the foldable strip of paper to the clear base layer and also covers the top-most panel of the folded strip of paper. A customer is instructed to sever one side of the transparent outer layer to gain access to the folded strip of paper. These three-layer stick-on labels have not, heretofore, been employed for delivering negotiable instruments. Furthermore, the use of a clear base layer in these labels renders them unsuitable for such use. Ideally, the customer and/or retailer would like to be alerted if the stick-on container label has been tampered with, for example, by removal of the strip of paper before purchase. However, once the folded strip of paper has been removed from these labels, only an easily overlooked clear base layer remains. The hypothetical use of sweepstakes entry forms or rebate coupons to elicit survey data would be inefficient due to the historically low redemption rate of such forms or coupons, typically less than 10 percent.
The prior art also consists of three-part and two-part (no outer layer) labels for delivering booklets to a customer by attachment to a container. The booklets typically provide information about the product in the container or about something related to the product. Coupons are often provided in the booklet. The booklets are designed either to remain attached to the product or to be removed by the customer after purchase. None of these booklets disclose providing an immediately negotiable instrument therein. Furthermore, these labels do not disclose a survey data questionnaire delivery system.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,273,105 discloses a two-part label. One part, the original label, is permanently attached to a container by an adhesive backing. The other part is for temporary attachment to the container and provides printed material. The purchaser of the container may remove the temporarily attached part and gain access to a paper leaflet attached to it by tearing along a perforated line. The printed matter on the permanent label and temporarily attached label may be duplicates of one another and have delineated thereon the name of the commodity, the maker's name and the like. U.S. Pat. No. 1,273,105 uses an adhesive tab to secure the opening side of the temporary label to the container. This patent does not disclose providing a negotiable instrument with the temporarily attached part of the label nor does it disclose the use of a transparent top layer. Furthermore, it does not disclose a survey data questionnaire delivery system.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,592,572 discloses a foldable strip in which the strip is folded into panels. One panel is permanently attached to the product container. Another panel forms a covering layer, and the remainder of the panels are folded to lie between the panel permanently adhered to the container and the covering label. The panel which forms the covering label also has a portion which is permanently adhered to the underlying container, but which is severable along a line of perforations to provide access to the folded strip. FIG. 3 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,592,572 depicts panel 11 which is permanently attached to support web 26. This patent does not disclose providing a negotiable instrument as part of the label nor does it disclose the use of a transparent top layer. Furthermore, it does not disclose a survey data questionnaire delivery system.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,722,554 discloses a coupon form which includes a check separable from advertising and other materials along a line of perforation. This form is not designed to be affixed to a container nor severed from a portion serving as a product label. Furthermore, the reverse side of the check is not designed to act as a survey data questionnaire.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,222,201 discloses a checkbook in which a negotiable check is removably attached to the binding of a book by perforations. The check is also releasably attached to a permanently-bound stub along a second line of perforations. By tearing along the perforations, the check is separated from the checkbook while the check stub remains permanently attached to the book. The checks in this patent are not designed to be affixed to a container nor severed from a portion serving as a product label. Furthermore, the reverse side of the checks are not designed to act as a survey data questionnaire.
Lastly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,405,157 discloses a check releasably attached to a leaf of a booklet by a line of perforation. The patent describes prior art checks which contain questionnaires on their reverse side, thereby providing an incentive for a customer to provide survey data. The reverse side of the check in U.S. Pat. No. 4,405,157 contains only answer boxes. The questions are provided on other leaves of the booklet. The booklet is not designed to be affixed to a container. Questionnaires printed on the reverse side of checks draw a very high response rate and have proved to be an effective method of collecting survey data. However, the check in U.S. Pat. No. 4,405,157 is not designed to be affixed to a product via a label or associated with a product purchase in any form. Furthermore, the answers to the questions must be either YES or NO. There is no space for filling in answers to open-ended questions via "fill-in-the-blank" type answers. This deficiency significantly reduces its value as a survey tool.
In addition to the disclosure in U.S. Pat. No. 4,405,157, it is known to place questionnaire checks (checks with survey data questions on their reverse side) directly inside a product container. The checks are designed to compensate the customer for their time and energy in answering the survey. In order to gain access to the check, the customer must open the container and remove the check which is mixed in with the container's contents. Such a method has obvious drawbacks. One drawback is that not all products (e.g., ketchup or shampoo) are suitable for insertions of checks in the container. Another drawback is that the insertion step adds to the cost and complexity of packaging. In sum, the delivery of questionnaire checks by prior art methods have disadvantages that limit their application and effectiveness.
It is usually desirable when distributing questionnaire checks via product purchasing to obscure the fact that a valuable check is attached to the product until after the customer has made the purchase. Since these checks are typically used to collect survey data, deliberate purchasing enticements will skew the survey data results. A company that wishes to understand the profile of their customers prefers to discover who is purchasing their products, absent any deliberate enticement to do so. The delivery of questionnaire data to customers in a manner that would both elicit a response without necessarily enticing a purchase and that would also be adaptable to the myriad types of container and products available in retail stores remained, heretofore, an unmet challenge in the prior art.
One problem associated with stick-on labels is that they often obscure product information (e.g., product name, ingredients list, warning instructions) on the original container labels provided by the manufacturer. Such product information is often required by law to be adhered to the container, both before and after purchase or is desired by the customer to be permanently attached after purchase. The obscuring problem is especially serious when the container size is small. Since manufacturers do not usually design their containers and original labels so that additional stick-on labels can be strategically affixed, additional stick-on labels often can only be added if they do not interfere with the original labels. It would be desirable if this deficiency could be overcome, thereby allowing questionnaire checks enclosed within labels to be affixed to containers of both large and small size, and regardless of the layout of the original container label.
In sum, there is still a need for a negotiable document delivery system that is adaptable to the myriad types of containers and products available in retail stores and that would allow delivery of a negotiable document for survey data purposes via a stick-on label in such a manner that would both draw customer attention to the presence of the instrument within the label while not explicitly revealing its presence in a retail store. Furthermore, there is still a need for a label which can provide necessary product labeling information even if the stick-on label covers up all or part of the product container's existing label. The present invention fills those needs.